A Transparent Fire Pit Made Out of Solid Glass Bricks

Ben Uyeda of HomeMade Modern wanted to see if he could make a stable fire pit using very modern glass bricks. These are not the same frosted bricks as those used in bathrooms during the 1980s and 1990s; these bricks are made of solid, transparent glass.

An all glass fire pit is a very intriguing idea but glass can crack and break when it’s exposed to thermal shock. Today we’re going to see if we can make a fire pit that doesn’t crack and experiment with this new type of material …a solid glass brick.

Uyeda conducted a couple of experiments, learning as he went how to get the burn going with the right amount of reflection and refractions of the fire through the brick with less soot buildup.

I started to realize that increasing the distance between the fire and the bricks wouldn’t just be good to prevent cracking it would also improve the aesthetic as well. So we assembled a larger fire pit with slightly lower walls and right away, I saw that this one was really capturing this aesthetic that I was originally going for.

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He also learned that this was a really risky experiment that neither he nor anyone else should attempt to recreate.

Update! After listening to the observations from people with far more experience I think the experiment will end here and I do NOT recommend recreating this experiment. It seems that while it could be fine with controlled parameters or with a gas burner, the imprecise nature of a fuel like wood creates the opportunity for overloading and the design calibration of distance to fuel should not be relied upon.

Uyeda also consulted with artist Weston Lambert for some helpful tips.

Later in the video I interview glass artist Weston Lambert about working with solid glass.

via The Awesomer